Another Migrant Health Scare

I often refer to the fact that The Daily Mail is the paper of choice for the odious BNP and that despite both lovers seeking to distance themselves from each other, there certainly is a symbiotic relationship. Both the mail and the express are currently engaged in a competition to ensure their scary immigrant front pages find their way into BNP literature [(c)A.Vowl] and yesterday Simon Darby linked to Littlejohn's latest piece of crap.

However, today does see the BNP breaking away from the the Associated Newspaper bondage gear. In a story about the NHS - based on a BBC radio programme no less - the Mail is content to publish an article merely having a dig at NHS standards and young medics in general.

• One in six patients 'wrongly diagnosed' screams the headline.

Of course, the NHS does not keep records of such cases - presumably due to the difficulty in defining what is a diagnosis. My own mother was given Tamiflu not so long ago and it became clear that she may not have had the dreaded swine flu after all. That is just a non-medical opinion so how could that be verified?

The figures preceding the journalistic trick of using quote marks are based on research from a body called NPSA which,

• runs a database that records medical errors, patient incidents, mistakes in medical notes and near-misses on a voluntary basis.
  

  Between April 2008 and March 2009 there were 39,500 reports of incidents involving clinical assessment.
  

Quite how this figure of reported cases adds up to one in six (or about 16%) is unclear. Normally a study would involve using a set number of randomly selected patients and finding a figure from that. Again, how is misdiagnosis quantified? Many legal cases involving NHS negligence claims are settled without any finding or admission of liability (often for financial expediency reasons but there you go).

The story then refers to a 'similar' study in the USA (with its 'similar' health service no doubt) reaching a figure of 15% and other research concluding with 10%. So let's just pick the higher figure eh?

The article then quotes Professor Graham Neale, of the Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality at Imperial College London, who has been researching misdiagnosis for the past four years and wants to see improvements to medical training.

Again, not clear whether he is anything to do with any of the studies or just a convenient rentaquote. Wanting to see improvements is natural but where's the beef.

I didn't set out to pick apart the Mail article itself but it does raise questions and maybe someone like Ben Goldacre will/has covered this in detail.

Allowing for the issues raised above, I thought something was missing from the tone of the piece.

So, over to our friend at the BNP bunker. They noted the story and also managed to find a way of completing the jigsaw with that funny looking piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere unless to stretch it and cut off a few edges.

• * Is NHS's Misdiagnosis Rate Linked to High Number of immigrant Doctors?

The haters continue:

• * Are new figures which show that one in six National Health Service patients are the victims of misdiagnosis related to the fact that 30 percent of all doctors in state employ are of Third World origin?

Nice use of rhetorical questions there. I wonder what BNP supporters will answer to that one. No need to phone a fiend (sic) or take fifty-fifty so let's move on.

• * Observers have asked this uncomfortable question in the wake of new research from the Imperial Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality at Imperial College London which has revealed that 16 percent of all patients treated in NHS hospitals and GPs’ surgeries are having their symptoms misdiagnosed.

Now this is interesting. Prof Neale is clipped to the 16% figure here whilst the Mail article is ambiguous. Is the BNP capable of better journalism than its reluctant mentor?

But where do immigrants come in ? (If you answered Calais to that, you should stop reading right-wing papers).

• * “There is absolutely no doubt that this is being under-reported,” Prof Neale was reported as saying. “But more importantly they are not being adequately analysed. Trainee doctors are too quick to judgment; that is one of the problems that we face.”

Note the slight irony in the reference to inadequate analysis. Tell us about the foreigners, Prof. Neale.

• * According to Prof Neale, doctors were making mistakes because they were too quick to judge patients’ symptoms while others were reluctant to ask more senior colleagues for help. It is in the area of trainee doctors — specifically identified by Prof Neale as a problem hotspot — that Third World immigrant origin staff are a disproportionate part of the NHS.

M'lud, the prosecution is leading the witness here. What does Prof. Neale say about Third World immigrant staff?

• * According to the medical journal The Lancet, in issue 9685 of 18 July 2009, around 16 percent of the 1.4 million people who work in the NHS are of Third World immigration origin, including 30 percent of doctors and nurses, 16 percent of midwifery and health-visiting staff, and 5 to 7 percent of staff in ambulance services.

Come, come. Answer the question. Cause. Effect. Evidence. Facts!

• * Prof Neale, of course, did not dare mention the immigration factor in his findings.

The defence rests, M'lud. Before that, may it please the Court to suggest that Prof. Neale requests that the BNP remove his name from a report which is a tissue of lies and hatred.

Interesting that the BNP finds a figure of 16% to tie in with the totally unconnected Lancet stats and then includes the 30% figure. So, on a purely average basis, this would suggest that the figures could well be less for foreign doctors. Of course, like when the Mail talked about 20% of crime in London being committed by 'foreign' people when the immigrant population of the capital is much higher, it relies upon your reader being too dense to look closely at the numbers.

We all know that BNPers will also take the figure to mean that 30% have just landed here, rather than being born here because in Griffin's tainted world you cannot be non-white and British.

Not content with the thinly-disguised innuendo, the article then adds another favourite - the superbug!

• * The increase in the numbers of Third World staff has also coincided with the rise of the superbug scandal in NHS hospitals — a problem which never occurred in pre-mass immigration NHS days.

See, everything that is bad is down to dem brown people. Not a racist party, my arse!

So what would the patriot barnpots do?

• * The British National Party’s policy on the NHS is to return it to the First World standards for which it became famous. This will be done by raising pay rates so the trained, native British personnel who were forced into private practice will return, and by calling a halt to the recruitment of Third World personnel, amongst other measures.

I could be wrong here but the study does not make clear that it only involves errors in hospitals. Are GPs in private practice involved here?

Footnote:

Wondering what the BNP morons would say about it? Oh go on then:

• * Now this is not surprising,1 in 6 people are diagnosed wrongly by the foreign untrained so called doctors added to the disseases that they brought with them and put in our hospitals,are'nt we lucky to have this type of health service where you go in to get diagnosed and come out with something else.It is well known that the New Queens hospital in Romford is full of aids, a nurse told us whilst talking to us and yet there is no investigation into this,absolutley disgusting. RJ Mitchell

• * the thought of being treated by 3rd worlders does not appeal to me one bit, the words heal, treat, care are not part of these immigrants interests, there here for the money

• * I remember my only stay in horsepittle. It was 1940. Not a single nurse, sister, matron nor doctor was of the enhanced melanin variety.

• * If I am unfortunate enough to need surgery I do not want a third world person anywhere near me - not even sweeping up.

• * Misdiagnosis or medical jihad?

• * If the BRI(Bangledashi Royal Infirmary)in Bradford is anything to go by then I fear for my safety...The nurses there can barely speak english and the whole building is awash with invaders.

• * members of the amdd ASSOCIATION OF MUSLIM DOCTORS AND DENTISTS are carrying out the objectives stated in their charter by misdiagnosing kafir patients

• * I will not have any more foreign medical staff examine or treat me.

• * Misdiagnoses and dangerous treatments by third world doctors might well be part of jihad. It would certainly be a very easy way to kill.

• * why should we be treated by foreign doctors we dont no what there medical history is like all we no is that they are hear because they are cheep laber .why should we listen to them speakin in the lanuges when they are walken around like they are britsh or some think . and another thing is that why should children in school be mingerling with the polish it ant right .when my kid go to school she ant going to do that and she anit going to be lerning they langues in class i would just take at her out of school and teach her my self and she would learn much more at home then she would school. [CLASSIC!]

I'm now going to have a lie down, do some work and have a big pie.

Danny: Chumpion of the World

Watching actress Kim Cattrall's visit to Liverpool to trace her ancestry in Who Do You Think You Are? (available for UK only or proxy)(YouTube Link) reminded me of my own delving into genealogy some years ago. It was triggered by the death of my father and recent discovery of a number of half-siblings. Every family is capable of unearthing skeletons and scandals; when they involve celebrities - whose personal lives we think we know - it makes for fascinating TV.

One aspect of trawling through censuses and registers of births, deaths and marriages is the revelation of how far we have come. Families - even non-Catholic ones like mine - traditionally had very large families. My father's traditional greeting to someone with, say, four children was to venture that they didn't have a TV! A less glib appraisal shows us that working class Britain a century ago was subject to such hardship and high mortality rates, that in such families, necessity was the motherhood invention.

Many entries saw children born and dying within the year; other names would disappear from the next census. So, it does not take a sociologist to conclude that health has in the main improved since the creation of a welfare state 'from cradle to grave'. A visitor from could pick holes in that - citing the outbreak of mass obesity -but that also affects the USA in particular.

You can see where I'm going.

Tory MEP Daniel Hannon may be dismissed by Cameron as having a few eccentric ideas, but his views are not atypical of the Tories. The NHS may not be perfect but without it, how many of us would be in a position to ponder who do we think we are?